Slugterra: Dark Waters Android Review

I always get worried when booting up a licensed game, as titles that have been converted or brought from other media are often lacklustre. Luckily, Slugterra: Dark Waters is one of the best conversions from other media I have played on Android.

For those unaware, Slugterra is a cartoon series starring a character called Eli Shane and featuring an assortment of weaponised slugs that form the basis for the show. Much like Pokemon, this popular show is ripe for a game version, and that is exactly what we have here.

Apps Ministry have brought us a top down, pseudo isometric action game with light RPG elements. The game plays well, and the action has a satisfying feel, with the slugs having the correct amount of impact as they hit your enemies. The developer has got the balance between difficulty and the player feeling powerful just right, which automatically lends the levels a certain sense of natural replayability.

The game is pretty responsive, and the action can switch styles to third person, fighting and even first person when you fire certain items. It is never confusing, however as everything has a nice flow to it.

There are 13 campaign levels to play through, as well as 4 one on one dueling areas. The real meat of the game is in the ability to customise your loadout, with many options and unlockables to find and use, and it is here that players will find the game starts to keep calling them back for more, to try new items and stats.

I would like there to be a few more levels to play in, but the developer has promised new regular content so lets hope more is on the way.

I must mention the effort that has gone into designing the look of the game, as it is very impressive. The animations are good, the frame rate very stable and the worlds are colourfully designed and seem to be faithful to the TV show. The developer has even managed to nail the character animations and unique stylings from the original as well. If you are a fan of the TV series, you will be in heaven here.

Overall, I have come away from Slugterra: Dark Waters suitably impressed. For fans of the show, this is a no-brainer. For everyone else, this is a good-looking action game with a few RPG elements and decent customisation options, so is still very much worth checking out.

You never know, this game could be good enough to create a few new fans of Slugterra and send them rushing to Google to find out more about the show. Highly recommended.

About Author

Simon Burns is the editor and founder of VoxelArcade and The Smartphone App Review. He has been a fan of technology for over twenty five years and loves playing with gadgets and spending time with his family. You can get in touch with him via the ‘contact us’ section of the site or on Twitter by following @smartappreview